Glow: The Nutritional Approach to Naturally Gorgeous Skin by Nadia Neumann (Page Street Publishing, 2017) helps you get healthy and gorgeous skin by adjusting your diet and skincare routine. This excerpt explains how your gut health is connected to your skin quality.
Remember all of the glow-getting nutrients your skin is craving? Well, they’re worth diddly squat if digestion is impaired — if you’re not properly breaking down those nutrients, your body simply can’t make use of them. They go to waste (literally, many of the nutrients will be flushed down the toilet with your waste).
But the role of the gut extends far beyond simply breaking down foods and assimilating nutrients (though this is by no means simple). It’s now known that up to 80 percent of the immune system resides in the gut and that the gut’s microbiome is responsible for synthesizing a number of critical vitamins. And when there are imbalances and irritations in the gut, it is a significant source of chronic inflammation that often manifests elsewhere in the body, especially the skin.
The integrity of the gut lining plays a particularly significant role in skin health. Increased intestinal permeability, or “leaky gut,” occurs when the delicate intestinal lining becomes permeable as a result of irritation to the gut lining. Inflammatory skin conditions, such as acne, eczema, dermatitis and rosacea, are actually considered one of the telltale signs of leaky gut by practitioners.
Needless to say, it’s important that everything happening between your tongue and your tushie runs smoothly.
When it comes to supporting your gut for healthy skin, it’s a matter of:
1. Eating for optimal digestion
2. Further supporting digestion when needed
3. Nourishing your gut microbiome
4. Protecting and healing your gut lining
More From Glow:
• Curried Avocado Chicken Salad
• Siren Seaweed Mask
• Keep Hormones Healthy and Skin Happy
• Understanding the Skin
Nadia Neumann is a nutritional therapy practitioner, nontoxic-living advocate, author of The Complete Home Detox Guide, and founder of the healthy living website Body Unburdened.
Reprinted with permission from Glow: The Nutritional Approach to Naturally Gorgeous Skin by Nadia Neumann and published by Page Street Publishing © 2017.
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